Bill Belichick offers little on coaching staff changes, Mac Jones' status as QB during end-of-season press conference

BOSTON -- The Patriots finished the year at 8-9, a sub-.500 record. It's the second time in three years that the Patriots finished a season below .500, something that happened zero times under Bill Belichick from 2001-19, a near-two-decade stretch when the team's regular-season winning percentage actually sat at a remarkable .763. (Their postseason winning percentage during that time was also .732, which is -- in a word -- insane.)

Clearly, times have changed in Foxboro. But the man in charge remains the same.

And, considering those circumstances, Belichick faced a barrage of questions on Monday morning for his postmortem media session, which was held over Zoom. With the odd decision by Belichick to use Matt Patricia and Joe Judge as his top two offensive coaches seemingly backfiring in a big way throughout the entire season, that choice by the head coach was a popular topic of conversation.

Belichick, though, offered little in the way of expressing satisfaction or regret for his coaching staff decisions, and he offered no hint at whether sweeping changes will be coming this offseason.

"We'll evaluate everything that we've done -- from me on down to everybody else -- and evaluate things and make improvements where we feel like we can. Again, there were a lot of positive things over the course of the year in all areas that we can build on, but in the end, it wasn't what we want it to be or need it to be, so that'll all be ... we'll look at everything," Belichick said when asked directly if he expects Patricia and Judge to remain in their roles on the offensive coaching staff.

Noncommitment was the theme of the session, as Belichick didn't even give a real answer either way when asked if he expects Mac Jones to remain the Patriots' starting quarterback for next season.

"Well I think there's, you know, Mac has the ability to play quarterback in this league. And we have to all work together to try to find the best way as a football team -- which, obviously the quarterback's an important position -- to be more productive than we were this year," Belichick said. "So that's incumbent upon all of us, we're all work together on that, and again, look for better results."

For Jones, that's not the most enthusiastic statement of support from the head coach, to say the least.

Belichick, who said he plans on coaching the Patriots next season at age 71, stressed that the team's season just ended, so the evaluation process of everything on the team -- coaches, players, etc. -- will begin today. As such, he offered little in the way of explanations or evaluations of the way his team functioned this season.

Yet with the offensive struggles so plainly obvious to all who watched the team this season from training camp through Week 18, Belichick's non-answers on the matter were wholly dissatisfying. Considering Belichick said to blame him if the coaching setup failed, this was hardly a moment of accountability for the head coach.

As such, after 15-plus minutes of the vague "got to do better" answers, the questions became a bit more pointed.

When asked in a straightforward manner if he put the Patriots in the best position to succeed this year with Patricia and Judge running the offense, Belichick only said that every decision he makes is made with the intention of doing "the best thing for the football team."

When asked if his opinion has changed on the importance of having experienced offensive coaches running the offense, Belichick deflected, saying, "We'll always do what's best for the football team. So that's what we've done, that's what we'll continue to do." 

Belichick did admit to having made "plenty of" mistakes over the years, but only after trying to do "what's best for the football team." Yet with the decision to have a defensive coach call offensive plays and a special teams coach lead the quarterbacks room being a seemingly obvious case of a decision that was never going to benefit the Patriots, the questions continued as to why and how that decision was reached.

The answer, though, remained the same.

"Yeah, I would -- again, at that point in time, at every point in time, I've always made what I felt like were the best decisions for the team. That's all I can say. You can have your opinion on it -- whatever it is, I understand that. But I always did what I felt was best for the team in every area at every point in time since I've been the head coach of the New England Patriots," Belichick stated. "And I'll always continue to do that. I'll put the team first and do what I feel is best for the team. And whether you agree or disagree with that, that's up to you. You know, I respect that, but I'm always going to do what I feel is best."

So, for anyone hoping for some major changes or announcements one day after the Patriots' season came to a predictable end before the postseason even began, Monday morning did not deliver. Considering Belichick and the team still had the belief of possibly reaching the postseason as late as 3:30 or so on Sunday afternoon, that's pretty much to be expected.

But this year, clearly, fell well short of any and all standards established by Belichick himself over the first two decades of this century. With the team failing to make any real progress over the past three years, some more definitive answers will have to come from Belichick -- not just with the media, obviously, but with his actual coaching staff decisions -- in the coming days, weeks and months if this team is going to return to national relevance any time soon. Because a situation with a sub-.500 record, a lackluster 25-25 regular-season record since 2020 and zero playoff wins since 2018 is certainly not what's best for the overall health and success of the football team.